Here’s Stan Lee on a 1970 episode of To Tell The Truth – a fun game show where a panel of celebrities had to identify an individual with an unusual profession (in this case – comic book creator) among a group of impostors.

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If a CBDC were to be issued it would immediately displace cryptocurrencies – which are not scalable – cheap – secure or actually decentralized.

Enthusiasts will argue that cryptocurrencies would remain attractive to those who wish to remain anonymous.

But like private bank deposits today CBDC transactions could also be made anonymous – with access to account-holder information available – when necessary – only to law-enforcement authorities or regulators – as already happens with private banks.

Besides, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not actually anonymous – given that individuals and organizations using crypto-wallets still leave a digital footprint.

And authorities that legitimately want to track criminals and terrorists will soon crack down on attempts to create crypto-currencies with complete privacy.

Insofar as CBDCs would crowd out worthless cryptocurrencies they should be welcomed.

Moreover by transferring payments from private to central banks a CBDC-based system would be a boon for financial inclusion.

Millions of unbanked people would have access to a near-free efficient payment system through their cell phones.

His sermon last Sunday lamented the plight of exploited people – indigent people and migrants – blaming ‘the wealthy few’ for hoarding the riches that ‘in justice – belongs to all’.

The sermon was delivered to 6,000 invited poor people – 1,500 of whom were fed afterwards at a Vatican lunch; it’s part of the Pope’s anti-poverty initiative in Vatican City – which includes free healthcare provided to homeless and poor people in St Peter’s Square.

He also drew attention to the plight of abandoned elderly – the friendless and ‘the cry of all those forced to flee their homes and native land for an uncertain future. It is the cry of entire peoples, deprived even of the great natural resources at their disposal’.

Francis said the poor were weeping ‘while the wealthy few feast on what in justice belongs to all.

Injustice is the perverse root of poverty’.

‘The cry of the poor daily becomes stronger but every day heard less’ he said.

That cry is ‘drowned out by the din on the rich few – who grow ever fewer and more rich’ the pontiff said.

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The Sackler Courtyard – a new addition to the Victoria & Albert museum in London. Photograph: AFP Contributor/AFP/Getty Images

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Members of the multibillionaire philanthropic Sackler family that owns the maker of prescription painkiller OxyContin are facing mass litigation and likely criminal investigation over the opioids crisis still ravaging America.

Some of the Sacklers wholly own Connecticut-based Purdue Pharma – the company that created and sells the legal narcotic OxyContin – a drug at the center of the opioid epidemic that now kills almost 200 people a day across the US.

Suffolk county in Long Island – New York recently sued several family members personally over the overdose deaths and painkiller addiction blighting local communities.

Now lawyers warn that action will be a catalyst for hundreds of other US cities – counties and states to follow suit.

At the same time prosecutors in Connecticut and New York are understood to be considering criminal fraud and racketeering charges against leading family members over the way OxyContin has allegedly been dangerously overprescribed and deceptively marketed to doctors and the public over the years – legal sources told the Guardian last week.

‘This is essentially a crime family … drug dealers in nice suits and dresses’ said Paul Hanly – a New York city lawyer who represents Suffolk county and is also a lead attorney in a huge civil action playing out in federal court in Cleveland Ohio involving opioid manufacturers and distributors.

The Sackler name is prominently attached to prestigious cultural and academic institutions that have accepted millions donated by the family in the US and the UK.

It is now inscribed on a lawsuit alleging members of the family ‘actively participated in conspiracy and fraud to portray the prescription painkiller as non-addictive – even though they knew it was dangerously addictive’.